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Top executives at Japan’s Kobayashi Pharmaceutical resigned on Tuesday following revelations that a health supplement the company sells may be linked to 80 deaths.

A damning external report funded by the company found that leadership had acted with an “insufficient sense of urgency” over consumer safety risks.

The tablets in question are made with red yeast rice or “beni koji,” which is fermented with mold cultures.

While a a common ingredient in east Asian food and drink for centuries, it can promote organ damage depending on its chemical makeup.

At the time the government called Kobayashi’s delay in reporting the number of cases under investigation “extremely regrettable.”

The company should have recalled the products immediately and reported the incident, but it only decided to do so after an internal investigation process, the lawyers conducting the audit wrote.

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The caustic tone from Sidorov and Solovyov provided a stark contrast with that of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that same evening, who had personified cool aloofness, saying that, with four months to go until the election, “much could still change.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Peskov has often suggested, has bigger things on his mind than the fracas among his political enemies overseas.

With Moscow in its third year of war against Ukraine, they have jumped on the chaos in the United States as an opportunity to frame Russia as superior to the West and distract from domestic problems.

Despite not having been officially nominated, Harris appears to have already been designated a prime target by Russia’s overwhelmingly white male propagandists.

“The entire deep state will be backing Harris,” Sergei Markov, an analyst with Kremlin ties wrote on his Telegram channel.

Instead, the state news agency ran with a comment from the aide of Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council who loves threatening the West with nuclear annihilation.

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A wealth of promising home-grown titles from the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 back in June gave existing users plenty of reasons to stay subscribed.

Xbox Game Pass has had a really solid July for content, and it’ll get even sweeter if the rumors of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 hitting the service soon pan out.

I wrote recently about how games might not be enough to find those elusive “new” users in an article linked below, revolving around the dilemma that the overall number of “core” console players simply isn’t growing.

While speaking to developers at shows over the past year, a lot of the discourse revolves around “black hole” games like Fortnite and Roblox, which vacuum up users and turn them into mono-gamers with no interest in playing anything else.

Xbox Game Pass is an attempt to cut through that trend in the name of supporting and showcasing the variety of art the industry has to offer — meeting new customer cohorts halfway.

The vastness of its Activision-Blizzard purchase seems to have led to a lost couple of years of momentum for Xbox as a brand, with attention focused solely on its variety of court cases.

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“I first saw this in 2013 - an enormous amount of oxygen being produced at the seafloor in complete darkness,” explains lead researcher Prof Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

And because these nodules contain metals like lithium, cobalt and copper - all of which are needed to make batteries - many mining companies are developing technology to collect them and bring them to the surface.

And his discovery, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, raises new concerns about the risks of proposed deep-sea mining ventures.

The scientists worked out that the metal nodules are able to make oxygen precisely because they act like batteries.“If you put a battery into seawater, it starts fizzing,” explained Prof Sweetman.

And this discovery suggests that the nodules themselves could be providing the oxygen to support life there.Prof Murray Roberts, a marine biologist from the Univerisity of Edinburgh is one of the scientists who signed the seabed mining petition.

“There’s already overwhelming evidence that strip mining deep-sea nodule fields will destroy ecosystems we barely understand,” he told BBC News.“Because these fields cover such huge areas of our planet it would be crazy to press ahead with deep-sea mining knowing they may be a significant source of oxygen production.”Prof Sweetman added: “I don’t see this study as something that will put an end to mining.“[But] we need to explore it in greater detail and we need to use this information and the data we gather in future if we are going to go into the deep ocean and mine it in the most environmentally friendly way possible.”

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The European Union has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine.It comes weeks after Hungary assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union, a role in which it would normally host the event, and amid anger over a meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month.

Every six months, under each new council presidency, the EU’s foreign and defence ministers hold informal meetings to discuss the biggest global issues facing the bloc.

Following the decision, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on Facebook: "What a fantastic response they have come up with.

"Mr Orban’s meeting with Mr Putin came as part of what he described as a “peace mission” - launched days after Hungary assumed the council presidency - that also saw him visiting the leaders of Ukraine and China as well as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the US.

The trip sparked condemnation from leaders across the EU, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen describing it as “nothing but an appeasement mission”.Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Mr Orban had “no mandate to negotiate or discuss on behalf of the EU”, while Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the trip sent “the wrong signal to the outside world and is an insult to the Ukrainian people’s fight for their freedom”.The episode is one of numerous occasions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on which Hungary has been at odds with most of the rest of the EU about the appropriate response.

After winning re-election in April 2022, just months after the invasion, Mr Orban told a crowd of supporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the people he would have to “battle” in his fourth term.Last year, he repeatedly used Hungary’s veto to delay a €50bn (£42bn) package of non-military financial aid to Ukraine.

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At least six people have been killed after a gunman opened fire in a care home in Croatia, sparking calls for stricter gun control in the Balkan country.

Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic said he was shocked by the “savage, unprecedented” mass shooting and called for rules on gun ownership to be “even more rigorous”.

Marin Piletic, Croatia’s minister for Labour, Pensions, Families and Social Policy, said the mother of the suspect had been a resident of the care home for 10 years.

He also had a previous record for disturbing public order and domestic abuse, according to Croatian national police chief Nikola Milina.

“I was stacking the medicines and then I heard gunshots,” a shocked employee of the nursing home told state broadcaster HRT.

Last year, two mass shootings in neighbouring Serbia left more than 18 people dead and led many Serbs to hand in thousands of registered and unregistered weapons as part of a government amnesty.

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BRUSSELS — Hungary on Monday said it had asked the European Union to take action against Ukraine for imposing a partial ban on Russian oil exports, arguing the move was jeopardizing Budapest’s energy security.

Kyiv last month adopted sanctions blocking the transit to Central Europe of pipeline crude sold by Moscow’s largest private oil firm, Lukoil, sparking fears of supply shortages in Budapest.

The escalating diplomatic spat comes as ties between Ukraine and Hungary hit rock-bottom, with Kyiv last week lashing out at Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin within a self-styled “peace mission.”

The ban means the country’s central Slovnaft refinery would “receive 40 percent less oil than it needs,” Fico said, arguing it would also reduce Slovak fuel exports to Ukraine that make up a 10th of Kyiv’s consumption.

Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU banned imports of Russian oil arriving at the bloc by sea, but allowed landlocked countries like Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic to continue buying supplies via the Russia-to-Europe Druzhba pipeline until they could find an alternative solution.

But Budapest, which has angered Ukraine by holding up EU sanctions against Russia and has stalled Kyiv’s attempts to join the bloc, hasn’t tried to find other options, said Isaac Levy, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air think tank.

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A Russian court has sentenced Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, to six-and-a-half years in prison after a rushed, secret trial.

Gershkovich’s trial was similarly concluded with unusual haste, raising hopes of a prisoner swap involving the Wall Street Journal reporter, which has long been the subject of private discussions between Russian and US officials.

Still, Kurmasheva’s verdict, handed down on the same day as Gershkovich’s, suggests that Russia might be seeking to trade her for Russians wanted by the Kremlin, including several deep-cover spies behind bars in the west.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has launched an unprecedented crackdown on protesters, independent news outlets and foreign social media networks.

In March 2023, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed off on a draconian law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military, in effect criminalising any public criticism of the war.

Stephen Capus, the RFE/RL president and CEO, on Monday denounced the trial of Kurmasheva and her conviction as “a mockery of justice” and said that “the only just outcome is for Alsu to be immediately released from prison by her Russian captors”.

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A gunman has shot dead five people in a nursing home in the Croatian city of Daruvar, some 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of the captial, Zagreb, Croatian media reported on Monday.

The Index news portal said five people died immediately, while others were wounded and still receiving medical assistance.

The suspect fled the scene, but the police soon caught him in a cafe near the facility in the town of Daruvar, the report said.

Police officials were not available immediately to confirm the shooting.

Shootings in the Balkan country are rare.

This is a breaking news story.

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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.

Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.

Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.

Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.”

Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.

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Apple is failing to effectively monitor its platforms or scan for images and videos of the sexual abuse of children, child safety experts allege, which is raising concerns about how the company can handle growth in the volume of such material associated with artificial intelligence.

In a year, child predators used Apple’s iCloud, iMessage and Facetime to store and exchange CSAM in a higher number of cases in England and Wales alone than the company reported across all other countries combined, according to police data obtained by the NSPCC.

Through data gathered via freedom of information requests and shared exclusively with the Guardian, the children’s charity found Apple was implicated in 337 recorded offenses of child abuse images between April 2022 and March 2023 in England and Wales.

The company instead directed the Guardian to statements it made last August, in which it said it had decided not to proceed with a program scanning iCloud photos for CSAM because it instead chose a path that “prioritizes the security and privacy of [its] users”.

Apple’s tool, called neuralMatch, would have scanned images before they were uploaded to the iCloud’s online photo storage, comparing them against a database of known child abuse imagery via mathematical fingerprints known as hash values.

“Apple does not detect CSAM in the majority of its environments at scale, at all,” said Sarah Gardner, chief executive officer of Heat Initiative, a Los Angeles non-profit focused on child protection.

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An MP for the radical-left France Unbowed party has sparked outrage after saying Israeli athletes are not welcome at the Paris Olympics and calling for protests against their presence.

Yonathan Arfi, the head of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), described the comments as “indecent” and “irresponsible”, accusing Portes of “putting a target on the backs of Israeli athletes”.

Arfi reminded the MP that 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics and said the country’s Olympians were “already the most in danger” at the Games.

Portes later told Le Parisien newspaper that French diplomats should put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban the Israeli flag and anthem at the Games, which open on Friday, “as is done for Russia”.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said: “The hints of antisemitism in his [Portes’] comments are obvious.”

Israel’s football team is scheduled to play its first match of the Olympics against Mali in Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony.

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Critics say the legislation is fundamentally undemocratic and would undermine Israeli academia, because it restricts free speech and allows politicians to weaponise accusations that should be handled by the legal system.

Sivan said the legislation was dangerous for its broad restrictions and its narrow focus on universities, adding that Israel already had laws against incitement to terror that cover all residents.

“What they are trying to do is subject academics to stricter rules than other residents of Israel, where a violation of state laws is not judged in court but rather by a government-appointed administrator, with no process or opportunity for the accused one to defend him or herself.

The Association of University Heads, Israel (Vera) said in a public letter that the student union billboards backing the law were a divisive “campaign of persecution and incitement” that could lead to violence.

One of the academics targeted, Anat Matar from the philosophy department at Tel Aviv University, said the role of students in drafting and promoting a law to silence their lecturers was particularly disturbing.

Vera warned in a public letter that the draft law would also fuel international sanctions campaigns against Israeli universities by undermining their academic independence.

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Barcelona plans to increase the tourist tax for cruise passengers staying in the city for less than 12 hours, the mayor revealed in a Sunday interview.

“We are going to propose… substantially increasing the tax for stopover cruise passengers,” Jaume Collboni told El Pais newspaper.

It comes just weeks after protesters in Barcelona, chanting: “Tourists go home,” sprayed visitors with water as part of a demonstration against mass tourism.

“In the case of stopover cruise passengers (less than 12 hours) there is intensive use of public space without any benefit for the city and a feeling of occupation and saturation,” he said.

Anti-tourism activists have protested in popular holiday destinations across Spain, such as Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, and the Canary Islands.

However, many argue that only a minority benefit from the industry, while the vast majority are left with poorly paid jobs and experience housing shortages, traffic jams, noise, and pollution.

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The bodies of a couple who were on a sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean have been found on a life raft that washed up on a remote Canadian island almost six weeks after they were last seen.

Briton Sarah Packwood, 54, and her Canadian husband, Brett Clibbery, 70, are thought to have abandoned their yacht and died before washing up on Sable Island – known as the “graveyard of the Atlantic” – east of Nova Scotia in Canada on 12 July.

One theory investigators are exploring is that the yacht was struck by a passing cargo ship that did not notice the collision, according to Canadian news website Saltwire.

Brett proposed to me in the main cabin of the boat.” The couple then married on Theros in 2016 and Packwood moved to Canada in 2018, purchasing land with Clibbery on Salt Spring Island.

In a video posted to their YouTube channel, Theros Adventures, on 12 April the pair named the trip the Green Odyssey, and explained how it would rely on sails, solar panels, batteries and an electric engine repurposed from a car.

In what would be their final post, the pair wrote on Facebook: “Captain Brett and First Mate Sarah set sail on the 2nd leg of The Green Odyssey on board Theros – GibSea 42 foot sailboat.

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They maintain their businesses, study and live in this village of fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, mostly Indigenous Arawak, who have managed to preserve their culture and language through the centuries – despite waves of Spanish, Dutch and British colonisation and fights over land.

On 28 July, Mohabir and his 800,000 fellow Guyanese will be looking across the border as 21 million Venezuelans go to the polls to choose their new president – as Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s political heir, tries to remain in power for a third six-year term.

His main competitor is Edmundo González Urrutia, a 74-year-old diplomat and leader of the opposition coalition, Plataforma Unitaria (Unitary Platform), who has led all the independent polls, with at least a 20-point lead over Maduro.

In May, the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a US thinktank, warned that the Venezuelan army had “moved substantial quantities of personnel and equipment to sites near the disputed border”.

“Our integration with Guyana is part of Brazil’s strategy to help, not just with development, but to work intensively to keep South America a zone of peace,” Lula said in February, as he ordered the army to reinforce its presence near the border.

In 2007, De Toma says, Guyana successfully resolved its territorial dispute with Suriname, presenting itself as a vulnerable state without military strength and resorting to international law to deal with the issue at a regional level.

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But the Georgian government abstained from joining sanctions against Russia, barred dozens of Kremlin critics from entering the country, and accused the West of trying to drag Tbilisi into open conflict with Moscow.

Tamar Jakeli, the head of prominent LGBTQ+ rights group Tbilisi Pride, argues that both initiatives are part of a broader strategy by the ruling party to divide society.

Maka Bochorishvili, a Georgian Dream lawmaker who heads the parliamentary EU integration committee, told The Associated Press that the “foreign influence” law aims to ensure transparency.

Nino Bakradze, whose investigative publication iFact.ge has for years tracked secretive offshore companies, corruption and the impact on Georgians of major foreign investment projects, says this would essentially halt their operations.

Tbilisi’s modernization in recent decades, and its increasingly active citizenry, appeared to signal that democracy can succeed in post-Soviet states, threatening the Kremlin and other regional autocrats.

Gia Japaridze, a university lecturer and brother of a top opposition politician, told the AP that his assailants freely admitted he had been targeted because of his criticism of the “foreign influence” law.

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